I’m starting to wonder how my parents picked out my English name. Did they just pick it from a random English book or did they turn to fantasy and popular TV shows for inspiration? There is a study that shows that the names Olivia and Amelia were the most common baby names in 2013 in the United States due to the popular influences from Game of Thrones! We have a list of names here from Hong Kong that we believe might have derived from Google Translate.
1) Never Wong
TimeOut Hong Kong
I’m guessing this man must always be right.
2) Fruit Chan (陳果)
zimbio.com
Not only is he a famous Hong Kong screen writer, filmmaker, producer, he must love fruits too. We’re pretty sure of that.
3) Jet Li (李連杰)
karmajello.com
He either likes aircrafts or he just wants to sound tough.
4) King Hu (胡金銓)
history.cultural-china.com
While Beijing is stiring fear over Hong Kong’s political doctrine, we certainly don’t want to see a king anytime in the near future.
4) Race Wong (黃婉佩)
huanqiu.com
Shall we go for a Race, Wong?
5) Oxide Pang Chun (彭順)
pnewsapp.tc.qq.com
He was recently busted having an affair with a young model. We strongly believe that it is due to his intense sexual chemistry in his body.
6) Sweet Ho (何嘉兒)
Naming yourself sweet DOES NOT mean that you will automatically become a sweet person. Just saying!
7) Ice Wong (王雅)
ndtv.com
The police arrested Ice for smuggling 460 grams of ice into China. How ironic!
“There are no signs of abating,” said David Li, a professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education’s department of linguistics and modern language studies. “There are more and more exotic or unusual names if one cares to collect and document them.”
If you want to untangle the causes of the weird names epidemic in Hong Kong, feel free to check out The Atlantic article.